


Heartbeat

by Antigone_Sycamore



Series: Solace [3]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Canon Divergence, Ellie’s POV, F/M, Hardy & Miller are so adorable, Hardy's POV, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Idiots in Love, Season 3, Spoilers Season 3, little bit of introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-27 09:24:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20758100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antigone_Sycamore/pseuds/Antigone_Sycamore
Summary: The infinitesimal spaces between the end of one conversation and the beginning of another. Or Hardy actually tries to ask her on a date.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TreacleA](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TreacleA/gifts).

> Taking place somewhere in the middle of season 3. Slightly diverting form there. Also, English isn't my first language and I've been struggling with it more than usual these days. Feel free to point out any and all errors in the comment section. I do appreciate it. 
> 
> Also also, I'm just gonna go ahead and gift this work to TreacleA. I had the time of my life reading "Loneliness (in F Flat Minor)", which I'm sure you all know (if you don't - stop right there - and IMMEDIATELY look it up). This right here is no masterpiece, probably littered with errors and certainly not the best thing I ever wrote, but I do want to give something back and this is all I have ;-)

***

It is a natural kind of progression in the end. No momentous revelation for anyone. Daisy asks him about it one night when she’s about to go to bed.

The infinitesimal spaces between the end of one conversation and the beginning of another. Stalling in the doorframe to her bedroom.

Him and Miller.

He just can’t bring himself to lie to his little girl about it. Instead, he runs a tired hand down his face.

„You could just ask her out, Dad,“ Daisy says like that _actually_ is a valid option, „you know- like normal people do.“

Hardy makes a face at the image. Him and Miller on a date. Where would they even go? Half the bloody town knows who they are anyway. 

But when he looks up, his daughter rolls her eyes at him, much the same way her mother used to do all the time, a slight smile tugging at the corner of her lips, „just ask her, Dad. Don’t be so dramatic.“ And Hardy feels a sting of pride blossom in his old and battered heart.

***  
He’s in early the next morning, catching up on paper work for the Winterman case. Of course, Miller _immediately_ can tell something’s up. 

„Why are you looking at me like that?“ she asks him over the rim of her cup, eyes slightly narrowed at him across the kitchen counter. 

For some unfathomable reason his mind immediately leaps for a dingy yellow ladies room at Wessex court. It’s hardly the same thing – _it is very far from the same thing_ – but Ellie Miller has probably shut him down even more often than his ex-wife. _Don’t be nice to me – that’s not how it works._ Suddenly his heart hammers uselessly against his ribcage as if it means to jump out of his body at any moment. 

He knows he’s about to reveal something to her, but he can’t stop the instinctive motion of his right hand towards his chest, to where the pacemaker sits below his skin, shocking his stalling heart back into its assigned sinus rhythm with more force than usual. Miller’s eyes follow the treacherous movement. 

“You alright?” she asks, eyes narrowing at him with further suspicion, but her voice is gentle and full of the usual Miller concern. 

His heart leaps another beat in his chest and Hardy wonders, if the pacemaker will ever manage to get the bloody thing in line. Even if he suspects that the cause is far from medical this time.

He nods his head, humming non-committally at Miller, “m’fine,” and bolts for his office. 

He spends the rest of the morning brooding in his office, avoiding looking up to where he knows she sits across from him behind the glass.

***

He lashes out on her the next day, because at least they are on familiar ground with that. 

“-‘cause it’s easy being you, Miller-,” he tells her in a secondary school car park in the glinting sunlight. He regrets the words the second they leave his mouth, but keeps barreling on nonetheless, “I’m the one who’s responsible, I’m the one who has to decide and that’s what I’m done.”

They both know he’s right, of course. The risk of another attack is too imminent to postpone Winterman’s ABE interview any longer; even if he _wanted_ to go gentle. 

Miller locks her jaw in place, lips set into a firm line and he can’t help but think that she’s always been beautiful when she’s pissed. They argue all the time. About work, about food, about the necessity of social niceties, about life in general. He’s rarely pulling rank on her, though. 

And it couldn’t be further from the truth. He has no idea how she does it at all – somehow still just _being_ Ellie Miller. After everything she’s been through. He’s the one whose watching her struggle almost every day now. With every new case, with every new victim, with her teenage son and, at times, with the little one too, with her dad, with being a women in a male dominated work space and with _him_; probably mostly with him. And yet, somehow, she’s emerged on the other side scarred and marred and furious, but unbroken. Miller isn’t bitter or resentful towards life, nor does she assume the worst in people. Somehow, despite everything, Ellie Miller still fiercely _cares_ and he respects her for that.

“How’you do it, Miller- the whole single parent thing?” he asks her by way of an apology, later when they are back on the High Street, squinting into the sunlight and he hopes she knows that means something. _Any of it?_

Miller’s still wearing the very same expression he’s put on her face in the school car park about an hour ago. Jaw locked in place, arms crossed. He had no choice but to drive when she just marched to the passenger side of the car, slamming the door harder than necessary. 

But her gaze softens slightly when she realizes that he’s in trouble with Daisy. 

“By constantly absorbing feelings of failure, guilt and shame,” she tells him without missing a beat. She’s smiling but he knows he can take each and every word of hers at face value. 

***  
For Daisy’s sake, he actually has a date a couple of days later. 

He can hardly expect his daughter to form any meaningful, healthy relationships in this town when he can’t even go through with one bloody date or maintain any social contacts outside of his work. So he swipes right on the app on a blonde women called Zoe, looking nothing like Miller or his ex-wife – as far as types go – but the bloody thing insists *It’s a Match.*

Of course, _it isn’t_. Zoe is nice and pretty and charming – and arguably _much_ less awkward than he is, but she’s a stranger and dinner and a short walk doesn’t change that. By the end of the night he feels no inclination to get to know her any better – not really anyways. 

The whole endeavor thoroughly discourages him from any further attempts at pursuing a romantic relationship with other members of the human species, but at least it gives him and Daisy an opportunity to bond over something that seems less like a minefield than all the other areas of their fragile father-daughter relationship. 

She takes an interest in his social life – or lack thereof – and he appreciates the concern. He wants to include her in his life here. Wants her to be part of the community that makes up this bloody town. 

***

Miller is watching CCTV footage of traffic cameras on her computer screen. They are trying to pinpoint the route Aaron Mayford’s car took on the Saturday afternoon before the party at Axehampton House. Her brows knit in concentration at the screen as she rewinds and fast-forwards through the tapes, her mouse clicking loudly through the empty station. 

Hardy catches himself watching her from across his office. He feels irritated at himself and altogether slightly annoyed with the lack of progress they are making in the Winterman case. Almost all the men associated with Winterman one way or another seem to have had a motive and an opportunity to attack her – it makes him wonder about the kind of man who would attack a women like that. Who would violate another human being like that.

Miller stifles a yawn at her desk. It’s already late but they both feel like they are working on borrowed time as it is. The danger of another attack pushing both of them to their limits. 

Hardy pushes out of his chair and crosses the short distance to her desk,

“Find anything?”

Miller rubs at her eyes, “Not yet. Why would he lie to us about going fishing?”

Hardy crosses his arms and shrugs, “I don’t know. People lie to the police all the time. In fact, I get the impression most of the men in this bloody town have something to hide.” 

Miller winces at his choice of words and he immediately feels sorry. More than two years later and the pain and trauma her ex-husband has inflicted on her is always still right beneath the surface. 

She pushes past the discomfort nonetheless, “Yeah, but if I’d be a convicted sex offender and the police came knocking, I’d just tell them everything. And how did he know about the party in the first place? He has no connection to Jim and Kath Atwood; he wasn’t invited.”

Hardy shrugs again, “Maybe he drove by, saw the lights on. With over a hundred people there it couldn’t have been that hard to get in unnoticed; mingle with the other guests. Have a drink or two.”

Miller looks thoughtful for a couple of seconds, “Anyone could have just marched in and mingled among the other guests.”

Hardy lets out a frustrated sigh and rubs a hand down his face, “Yeah, I know.”

Miller returns her attention to the computer screen and he turns towards the kitchen to get himself some tea, but thinks better of it at the last second.

His heart misses a beat. 

“We can- discuss it further- errr-,” he rubs the back of his neck, “over dinner maybe-tomorrow-”

“Okay,” Miller singsongs from her desk without even looking up from the computer. She’s already restarted the CCTV footage.

He gives her a few seconds to catch up but she has very obviously moved on from their previous conversation.

This is getting ridiculous. He’s done _much_ harder things in his life. Hardy turns around again, hands on his hips, making an effort to stand up a little straighter, forcing her to look at him again. 

“No, I meant – dinner. At my house-“

Finally, Miller lifts her gaze from the computer screen. 

“At your house?” she repeats, sounding much more incredulous than he had hoped for, eyes narrowing at him in suspicion, “I didn’t know you cook.”

Hardy frowns at her for a second, “I can cook just fine. Or we can order take out. Whatever. You’re the one who’s nagging me about food all the time anyways-.”

Miller blinks at him once, twice, mouth slightly agape. For a couple of seconds she looks like he’s just hit her over the head with something heavy out of nowhere. Hardy forces himself to hold her gaze, to stand still. By the end of it, he’s certain she’s about to snap at him.

But she actually reels herself in, hands clenching and unclenching at her table. 

“Alright,” she says.

Hardy shifts his weight from one foot to the other. 

“Alright,” he repeats, though he isn’t exactly sure what it is they have agreed on. When there isn’t really anything else to say he slowly turns around again and makes a beeline for his office. He makes a point of not looking up at her for the rest of the evening.

***

Their work rarely is physically strenuous or even dangerous. No one ever likes to talk to the police – no matter the circumstances – but it is pretty much unheard of for people to outright attack them when they try to question them. 

That’s why it takes him a couple of seconds too long to adequately respond when the bloke they just started questioning on the High Street to check Lucas’ alibi out of nowhere flips open a butterfly knife and leaps for Miller. 

It’s the end of a long rainy Thursday evening. They have no back-up with them and neither of them is armed. The guy has her in his grip, one arm twisting up her back, knife pressed to her throat in an instant. 

Hardy sees the panic flash clearly across her features, but Miller presses her lips together, jaw locked tightly in place and doesn’t struggle in the other man’s grip, except for her free hand coming up to grip at the arm around her shoulder.

Hardy tries to keep his own rising panic at bay. He raises both of his hand, indicating that he his unarmed. His voice, when he speaks, is a low rumbling in his chest that brooks absolutely no dissent, like steel cutting through glass,

“Mr. Summerton, I advise you to let go of DS Miller immediately, or I promise you this will end very _very_ badly for you.“

The man stares at him for a couple of seconds in confusion, clearly panicking himself, before he pulls the knife back and puts his own hands up. Miller immediately launches into full attack mode. She has the man disarmed and on the ground in less than 4 seconds, shoving him hard against the asphalt, while Hardy can do little but idly stand by and wait for her to arrest him.

“For god’s sake!” He doesn’t resist. Miller nonetheless presses his head against the pavement with one hand when she handcuffs him. 

The Winterman case has unfolded into a proper nightmare as it is. Every new insight, every new piece of information they gain seems to further dismantle the deceitful appearance of small town everyday life. What they uncover are human abysses. Jealous ex-husbands, stalkers, rapists – men who feel entitled, who feel treated unfairly by life in general and who will stop at nothing and no-one to help themselves to the things they think they deserve. 

It makes him ashamed to be a man. And it makes him fear for the safety of the women around him. That is why he cannot _not_ push.

They call for back up and Hardy tries not to fuss over Miller too obviously. He reaches for her once, touches her arm lightly but Miller violently shrugs him off. He feels as helpless by her side as he did all those years ago when they brought in Joe. When he could do little to support her but stand by her side, waiting for the storm to pass. When he could do little but drag her into the murder of another helpless child.

But Ellie Miller proved to be much stronger than he first anticipated. 

There’s a small cut along the side of her throat now, where the knife was pressed to her skin. It’s just a gash, really, but deep enough to bleed onto her blue shirt and deep enough to leave his own skin tickling with something akin to anxiety.

Miller is riled up and furious as hell, though. She wipes dispassionately at the blood and grits her teeth against the pain, 

“What the hell is wrong with these men? Has everyone in this bloody town transformed into a bloody murderer or rapist or a pedophile?”

“You alright?” 

“No, Hardy. I’m not. I’ve just been attacked with a fucking knife. I’m very much not alright-.”

He can tell she’s about to work herself up into a fit, eyes already glinting with angry tears in the dim artificial streetlights on Hight Street. He wants to touch her, wants to spread his palm across her neck and draw her in closer. He wants to inspect the wound on her neck more thoroughly, wants to run his fingers down her throat to make sure it’s just superficial. He wants to feel her pulse beneath his thumb to make sure _her_ heart is still beating as steadily and as fiercely as it always has been. 

Instead, he stands a few feet away, swaying slightly on his feet, his eyes never leaving her face, letting her vent.

“Bloody hell, Hardy,” she swears again through gritted teeth, brushing back strands of hair that have become lose from her ponytail with shaking fingers.

„Calm down, Ellie,“ he tells her quietly and she flashes him a look but doesn’t resist as he ushers her towards the car.

***

He gets out of the car and follows her inside the house on instinct – or at least that is what he tells himself.

Miller doesn’t comment but disappears into the upstairs bathroom as soon as they are inside. It’s late. The house is dark and quiet and he tries not to make too much of a fuss while he busies himself in the kitchen making tea.

Her kitchen is a mess. A telltale sign of absence and long hours. Children growing up without her while she spends her days hunting down thugs and sex offenders and murderers with him. Feelings of failure, guilt and shame incarnated in stained cups and burnt pans. He doubts that she collects any child maintenance from her ex-husband, though they have some sort of silent agreement not to talk about Joe. 

When she emerges from the bathroom the cut on her neck is clean and she’s changed into a lose grey jumper. She glances at him briefly, when he hands her a cup of tea, still teary-eyed and lips pressed tightly together, and he really doesn’t know if he can take any more of that tonight. 

“Sorry ‘bout the mess,” she mumbles as she brushes past him and starts collecting dishes and dirty cups from the countertop and loads them into the dishwasher, her movements erratic and too loud against the quiet house. 

He leans against the kitchen counter, sipping from his own cup, while he tries to stay out of her way and yet somehow, at the same time, _be there_ if she should need him. He figures she would have told him to get lost by now, if she didn’t want him there and he needs to make sure she’s O.K.

“Miller, s’alirght. You don’t need to do that now.” Because, _really_, what are a couple of dirty dishes against a knife to the throat on a bloody Thursday evening?

She smashes the dishwasher shut with too much force, the sound of clinking plates ringing loudly through the kitchen, and wipes at her eyes with the sleeves of her jumper against the tears that defiantly keep coming.

“Ellie-“

“I told Tom to clean up after himself a thousand times and I told my Dad to keep the kitchen more clean. But my Dad is too old and too messy himself to keep it all under control and Tom’s a bloody teenager and Fred’s still too young and I can’t do it all by myself-”

“Ellie,” he tries again and this time she does look at him, one hand gripping the countertop, the other wiping at the tears in exasperation. 

“You’re not alone,” he tells her and he pushes away from the counter, standing up to his full height, because he needs her to understand. He needs to see this through. 

Miller stares at him for a couple of seconds, unmoving under the dim light of her messy kitchen, trying to get her ragged breathing under control and he tries not to get irritated.

He’s so tired of being unable to provide any comfort apart from worried glances. He doesn’t want to presume anything but he’ll be damned if he can’t make her stop crying. He’s frustrated enough, he _almost_ asks for her permission again.

But before he has a change to mull it over properly, Miller swears through gritted teeth, her own exasperation with him at least familiar enough to be comforting, “Oh for god’s sake, Hardy.” 

She takes three small steps forward and without hesitation folds herself against him. She presses her face to his chest, tears soaking through his shirt, arms coming up around his waist and his poor heart misses yet another beat below his ribcage. 

He folds his arms around her, one hand at the nape of her neck and just holds her close for a couple of seconds. He can feel her take a deep breath in and out and in again. She’s not full on crying anymore but the residual little tremors now ripple through both of them. 

”s’alirght,” he mumbles against the top of her head, “I’m here.” 

They just stand there for a couple of seconds, surrounded by silence and the dark house. Her boys and her father fast asleep upstairs. It’s a stolen moment of peace amid all the drama that usually follows the two of them every step of the way. 

Before Miller lets go, her grip around his waist tightens for a moment and she squeezes at him. Hardy catches a sheepish smile ghost over her lips, before her grip loosens and she lets go of him and takes a step back. 

She wipes at her eyes again, not meeting his, and pushes her hair out of her face. 

“You’re utterly exasperating. You know that?” she tells him after a few heartbeats, meeting his eyes, but there is no heat behind her words. 

Hardy just grunts but can’t stop the slight smile forming on his own face, “So are you.” 

He thinks he should leave. Knows he should leave. Let her lick her wounds in private as she usually does. But something still keeps him rooted in place. 

Miller doesn’t move either. They stare at each other for another few seconds, before her gaze drops to the wet spot her tears have left on this shirt. 

“I’m sorry we missed dinner tonight, though” she says suddenly and it takes him a couple of seconds to catch on. Hardy shifts his weight form one foot to the other. There is only one direction now- 

“Don’t worry. I was gonna ask you again.” 

“Were you? Because the last time it took you bloody forever and I can’t wait another two years for you to come ‘round again,” she says, looking much more like her usual self again and he guesses that’s fair. Nonetheless, he makes a face and rolls his eyes at her for good measure, 

“Shut up, Miller.” 

When he leaves her house that night, they aren’t any closer to finding Winterman’s attacker than they were the day before, nor have they resolved any of the personal dilemmas that always seem to tear at the fringes of their lives. One step forward and two steps backwards. The past always right beneath the surface. Whatever it is they have – _or could have_ – for now it only exists in the infinitesimal spaces between interrogation rooms and car rides, between the end of once conversation and the beginning of another. Some sort of treaty forged in the dead of the night in a messy kitchen. And yet, when he makes his way down the hill from her house in the cold ocean breeze, for once Hardy feels his heart beating steadily in this chest. 

_***_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the words just keep coming. Once again, for the wonderful TreacleA, who does not only write amazing fanfic, but also is a kind and helpful human being! Thank you for helping me with this!!!

***

When it’s all said and done, all she wants to do is sleep for days. She wants to pull the covers up over her head, shut out each and every thought of Leo Humphries and Michael Lucas and drift off into the kind of uneasy dreamless sleep that comes with working long hours and screwing up your sleep cycle. 

Of course, Hardy is the one who reels her back in. 

They’ve been working overtime for almost a week now. Cross-referencing alibis, following up on leads all over town and interrogating suspects until the sky behind the station turns purple again in the early hours of dawn. She’s barely seen her boys in days and the guilt eats away at her as steadily and as persistently as the tides come in and go out again down at the harbour.

She feels Hardy’s worried glances at her, his own grim and tired face briefly looking up from a witness statement or from a cup of tea, searching her eyes over the rim of his ridiculous tiny glasses. When they finally nail the bastards that raped Trish Winterman it is as much a relief as it is a nightmare.

Listening to Humphries’ account of the events of that night, the persistent lack of shame or guilt or empathy as he methodically describes in graphic detail how he first planned and then executed and videotaped the rape of three different women leaves her drained and empty and sick to her stomach. 

She wants to smash his teeth in over the desk in the interrogating room, the sudden violent urge an eerie but predictable reminder of the one and only time she actually lost enough self-control to attack another person in an interrogation room. Instead, she pushes the thought away, tears forming at the corners of her eyes and flees the office as soon as she’s out of the interrogation room.

Hardy, also very predictably, follows not far behind.

“He is not what men are,” he tells her, face stern, a desperate edge to this slightly cracking voice but keeping his distance over the steps up to the station, and she just knows she’ll never be able to shut him out entirely – isn’t sure she wants to anyway. His concern for her has proven as persistent and as stubborn as all his other endeavors. The fingers of his right hand dig into her shoulder as he pushes himself up from the stairs and heads back inside, not meeting her eyes again.

He’s intense these days. _Well_, always has been intense, but nowadays, when he doesn’t have to stop to catch his breath over walking from the car park to his office door, he’s reached a new level of perception. Somehow, he’s always right _there_, always close, a steady unwavering presence by her side. It’s equal parts soothing as it is terrifying.

The thing just is, one too many man in her life has turned out not to be what they claimed they were.

***  
Of course, they don’t make it to dinner the next couple of days and she doesn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed about that. She spends the weekend with her sons, catching up over barbeque with Beth and Chloe and Lizzie and all the while pretends not to anxiously and guiltily glance at her phone every chance she gets. 

The call arrives on late Sunday afternoon, after almost two full days of absolute radio silence, that – very much unreasonably – leaves her feeling like she’s been cut off from human connection altogether. 

“Miller, are you busy?” he asks without so much as a _Hello_ or _How are you?_ and she’s immediately annoyed with him. 

“Yes, Hardy, I’m busy,” she tells him out of defiance, gritting her teeth against the sensation. She knows she’s being unfair, that he’s been giving her space, not wanting to intrude on what little time she has to spend with her sons. The thing is, with Hardy it’s only ever all or nothing. He either demands every shred of attention and focus she can possibly muster, or he’s the one trying to shut her out altogether. 

She can feel him rolling his eyes at her at the other side. It’s only a small comfort that his voice, when it finally comes, sounds much less sure of himself than usual,

“I thought--ehm--maybe you’d want to swing by later tonight, have a beer, or a glass of wine, or coffee, or tea-,” there is a short pause, “or I can come by your place, if that works better for you-”

She can picture him clearly at the other end of the line, eyes squeezed shut behind his glasses, one hand pressed to his temple to make himself shut up. 

“Hardy-,” she interrupts him before he has a chance to maneuver himself any further off the chart, “I’ll be there in about an hour.”

He’s silent again and she can’t help but hold her breath.

“Alright,” he finally says, and then, like this isn’t the vital information he should have led with, “I’ll make pasta.”

***  
Daisy bolts out the veranda door in front of her before she has a chance to knock an hour later.

“You’re not staying?” she asks the girl and is eerily reminded of her father when a shadow of indignation ghosts across her juvenile face.

“God, no-,” Daisy blinks at her, a coy smile tugging at her lips, “I mean-, I’m sorry but I can’t stay. I’m meeting with Chloe. See you later, Ellie.”

She’s down the steps and off the veranda before Ellie can say anything else and Hardy appears in the glass door frame instead. He’s not wearing a suit, which quite frankly, is more disconcerting than she had anticipated – oddly enough, apart from pyjamas and hospital gowns, this is probably the first occasion she sees him without one – and the unfamiliar image hammers home with undeniable clarity that things _are_ actually shifting between the two of them – that they are actually doing this. She eyes the dark blue jumper, which he’s rucked up at the sleeves and the pair of black jeans – black jeans, but _jeans_ nonetheless – with lingering discomfort and has to remind herself, that this is just Hardy; just _Hardy_, who she sees every day, just Hardy with his poor people skills and his moody attitude, just Hardy, who annoys the shit out of her for a living. 

“You look different,” she says by way of greeting, squinting into the light of the setting sun, “I didn’t know you own jeans.”

Hardy glares at her, one of his eyebrows arched sharply, hair ruffled from the wind on his veranda and at least that is a familiar enough image to put her a little more at ease. He looks good, though, she has to admit to herself. Somehow rough and tender and healthy all at once, a far cry from the disheveled, miserable and exhausted DI that took the job that was meant for her – and _wasn’t_ meant for her at all – on that fateful day all those years ago.

She feels the familiar sting in her chest, the way her heart clenches and unclenches when she thinks about what it means that she is here with him now at the edge of the bloody cliffs, Hardy’s tall lean frame standing out against the orange light of the setting sun over the ocean.

She’s very far from the person she was on that very day herself. An identity redefined from broken pieces after everything she knew had violently been stripped away. At times, it had only been his goddamn bloody persistence that held it all together.

Hardy looks at her, brows drawn together in confusion, concern suddenly evident on his face and she feels the tears start to burn behind her eyelids again. She really doesn’t mean to cry the third time in one week in front of him, but this time it is not anger or frustration but gratitude that brings the tears to her eyes. 

“Ellie,” he says voice gentle, stepping a little closer, “I-“ and she realizes this must all seem a bit mental to him at this point, but of all the things she is and has been she’s never been a coward.

Before he can say or do anything else, she pushes forward, crosses what little distance remains between them and presses her lips to his. He’s so surprised she has to get up on her tip toes to reach him as he freezes against her lips. 

For a couple of agonizing seconds neither of them moves. Then his hand comes up to lightly cup her elbow. He doesn’t pull her closer, but he adjusts his stance and suddenly she can feel him tentatively press back against her lips. 

It is all innocent and sweet as far as kisses go and when she pulls back to look at him, she can’t help but smile at the odd mixture of surprise and concern on his face. 

“Miller,” he says, her name rolling of his tongue as unwaveringly as ever and he looks at her, face stern and brown eyes oh so intensely serious as his hand curls around her biceps, “are you sure?”

Without hesitation she pushes up on her tip toes again. Only this time, he meets her halfway.

Later that evening, they have pasta and wine on his veranda, the sun setting behind them over the beach and for the first time in forever, she feels a little less at odds with the world again.

***

**Author's Note:**

> I wish I could write these two all day. Or read about them. Or watch the show. But instead I've been told I have to have a life and a job and stuff.


End file.
